The Tree
To me, it’s the most beautiful village in the world. Tucked under a row of low, rolling chalk hills and bathed all year round in the soft, yellow glow of English sunshine. In winter the mornings are shrouded in mists giving its ancient landscape the eerie splendour of a fairy-tale straight out of the Arthurian legends — rising hauntingly out of the watery scenery until the sun’s warmth burns the illusion away. What is left behind is just as spectacular, a village seemingly unchanged since the time of King Alfred.
We first came upon it while on holiday in the summer before my husband’s retirement. As the years fell upon him, he was tumbling more and more into the morose grip of ‘Grumpy man syndrome’. When, however, his eyes fell upon that hidden gem, they were lit with the inner light of enthusiasm the like of which I had not witnessed since we were both young, carefree and in-love — the whole world still ahead of us waiting to be conquered. I saw in him a decision made even before he had expressed his stampeding thoughts to me.
‘Yes,’ I said a little breathlessly, ‘Let’s do it!’
So on impulse, we sold everything we had strived to build for all our working lives. In what seemed like a whirlwind of time, we moved with one shaggy, sheep-dog tucked under my arm into a quaint and charming thatched cottage overlooking the small collection of near identical dwellings sprawled beneath us. It cost us a bomb, but we didn’t care. Of course, the locals, who appeared to have been living there in splendid isolation before the unset of the last Great War, did not exactly welcome us with open arms. We were ‘bloody city folk’ — interlopers. We had not been blessed with children, so we only had ourselves to care for and being placed on ‘the foreign list’ did not deter us from being happy. I have always been able to put people at ease, my talent, I suppose — my husband put it down to the ability to talk the hind legs off of a jackass. Whatever the explanation, I was soon able to make inroads behind the suspicious gazes and disgruntled mutterings of our neighbours. They were rooted in an old style concept of a farming community — almost old Saxon — but I soon invaded their fayres and markets with brightness and chatter, and even more importantly, I demonstrated the ability to roll up my sleeves with the best of them. This soon opened the door to grudging acceptance, especially by the elderly gentlemen who turned out to be flirts on legs. My wholesome but pretty face and long limbs were an irresistible spur for their risque country humour. Their wives tolerated their silliness masquerading as male attractiveness with dismissive tuts and head shaking. I have to point out at this stage that the youngest member of these good folk was already in his early sixties. Even so, my absent-minded husband hardly noticed anything.
Anyway, despite a bumpy start, my dear husband and I were already settled into our routines within six months. He took to writing novels in his new study — a converted spare bedroom which was facing the east/west arc of the sun and painted a lurid bright yellow (his choice not mine) to augment its glow. I took to walking with the dog. My short hikes carried me in a broad circle up onto the hills and back down. In all about a thirty-minute stroll. On the crown of the hill on my return route, stood a magnificent tree all by its lonesome. It stood like a sentinel — strong and immovable — silently contemplating the village with a brooding presence. It drew me like a moth to a flame and because of this, I at first treated it with a bit of caution — some kind of dormant, primitive instinct, I suppose. I also noticed that my dog, Shaggy, an incorrigible leg-lifter, skirted it gingerly despite its vast array of temptingly exposed roots — gnarled and knotted — forming a veritable nest around its thick trunk. It wasn’t fear that made him do this for he happily sniffed at every nook and cranny like a crazed demon with his tail wagging furiously and what could only be a grin on his parted and panting, salivary jaws.
As the winter days, drizzly and mysterious, drew out to become those long, summer ones when time stretches, and everything becomes possible, I took to sitting in this tree’s shade to admire the view before having to descend to our new home and afternoon tea. It gave me peace and contentment, and with each sitting, it gently pulled me in allowing me to dream without guilt — in the same manner, that I once did as a child. Soon it became the highlight of my walk, and I felt myself hurrying just to give myself a more extended period slumped on its roots with my back bolstered against its reassuring bulk. Each dream became longer, and I would lose myself in the moment. One day I came to with a start and was reassured only by the sleeping form of Shaggy curled up at my feet. Blinking confusedly I hurried down the hill. As I bustled through the front door, I bumped into my husband who was precariously struggling into his walking boots (which he hardly ever uses). The look of relief in his eyes replaced the fading panic on his face.
‘What’s the matter, dear?’ I asked feeling a grip of growing concern.
‘I was getting worried,’ he replied with a tinge of exasperation in his voice. ‘You were gone overly long.’
Frowning I glanced at the old clock hanging in the hallway. I had been away for three hours, but my walk was only a half-hour one. That didn’t seem possible…unless… No! I certainly hadn’t fallen asleep!
The next worrying episode occurred not long after. My husband had volunteered to do a short talk on the history of the village — something he had been obsessively researching. He spoke nervously and hesitantly to a packed town hall [sic] but was warmly and even keenly listened to by the residents who were genuinely proud of their heritage. He was sharing his venue with the ‘Ladies Literary Society’ [sic] of which I was a member so afterwards over a sip of wine (for the ladies) and Scrumpy cider (for the gentlemen) we all got down to a bit of socializing. I’m afraid my husband’s small victory with the erstwhile locals helped on by the wine enthused me with a heady over-confidence. I was happily engaging a spritely eighty-year-old on how the local stream, then free for all, was converted into a money-making scheme by the local council in years gone by. It was declared unsafe, the old gent was saying, until they attached pipes and tap to it. Then miraculously it was made clean, and the villagers had to pay through the teeth for the privilege of using it. Without thinking, I replied with an overly loud voice, something that was not my habit of doing.
‘Oh arh, I remember it quite well, me luvver,’ I guffawed in a broad West Country accent, slurping back some Scrumpy. ‘Young Jack expressed his displeasure he did, by pissing in their newly formed trough late that very night.’
I caught myself but it was far too late. The room fell silent. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop. The old chap in front of me was struck dumb, his eyes wide open and his mouth working overtime in an effort to rediscover sound. It wasn’t the volume. It wasn’t the accent. It was undoubtedly my reference to Jack who turned out to be the great Grandfather of the said spell-bound old fellow. The response had been so automatic, but it certainly wasn’t my thought or my words.
Well, from that moment things went downhill rapidly for the rest of the evening. The good folk eyed me nervously and avoided eye contact as much as possible without being overly impolite. In the end, we put them out of their misery by beating a hasty retreat.
‘What was that all about?’ enquired my baffled husband on the lonely way home.
‘I haven’t the foggiest, ‘I replied quite honestly.
Early the next morning we were awakened by a tentative knock on our front door. It was Stan, the old gentleman of last night.
‘Hello, Stan,’ I said a bit pensively. ‘Come on in.’
With a mug of steaming milky tea clasped tightly between his twisted fingers, Stan attempted to put the world to rights. He dived straight in.
‘Old Jack, ee was a Tegman a day back a-gone, somewhen. Cack-handed mucker like, he was, look. He would cruppy-down on that dun like a bloody Galley-bagger or summaterurther, all day he would. He and his sheep. But ee loved the munters just as much. Dat tale you did tell belongs only to my family, it does. Shrammed, I was, to hear ye. Pegged it where he stood one winter. Buried im deep and the roots did grow in im. Yonder tree took im, but he still wants to live, he does. Thank ee for the cuppa.’
He then got up abruptly and left. When the door was firmly closed behind our visitor, my shell-shocked husband set about translating. I felt a cold chill crawl up my spine.
I no longer sit under that tree. It leaves me with the feeling of being a reluctant adulterer, violated; call me silly if you may.
[West Country dialect is still alive and well in England, but it is gradually losing ground to our modern education system and its biases]
Tegman = Shepherd
Galley-bagger = scarecrow
Cruppy-down = crouch
Dun = hill
summaterurther = something or the other
cack-handed = left handed
munters = girls
shrammed = chilled to the bone